I know most people think of HITV as a not so good Sat-Station, but one thing i know for sure is that they have the premiership which I believe formed the major reason most of their customers got connected; DAAR DAAR DAAR; I have seen what they have and I must confess to you if I had my way I would disconnect my HITV and DSTV, that is not possible because of premiership, but i can risk giving up DSTV because of the cost to maintain one.

DAAR has very good content, but no premiership or Spanish league, but one very interesting thing about DAAR SAT is that they have state of the art equipment, and from what I read about those equipment, it will take DSTV complete relocation from SA to 9ja to to take the host broadcasting right, because everything I saw was HD; DAAR is giving us complete 50+ stations all HD, that is the latest and the best version to watch anything on TV, somebody correct me if am wrong; HITV is using the standard version that is 4 times lower than HD.

So my opinion will be for both company to benefit, they have to form a merger in order to create what I call a mega-sat-station could has the capacity to providing to our homes top quality programmes, and they could also use the medium to project the image of this country; help our local league, local films, news, music and entertainment, we could also promote our own version of a geographical channels.

Both companies will surely benefit from one another because most people who still watch DSTV could disconnect and join the DAARHITV, because imagine watching premiership, nigezie, hi-nolly, biscon, and other hitv programmes on HD (High Definition) ask your friends in the UK about HD or Visit Silver Galleria and pick up any HD-DVD of any hollywood films. DAAR will also benefit from subcriber who wish to see top quality films as well as sporting programmes using only one dish, because I know people are tired of just the sight of their house because some houses are turning into TV Stations with the number of dishes in one house. I have 3 dishes DSTV, Hitv and MYTV, I know Hitv and DSTV can use one dish, but the essense if having someone that is a seriously nigerian film with a global strenght, Aljazira and some foreign sats, you can see what supersports is doing with the PSL (Premier soccer League) South African league.

Our league can even be better, because we have other 40 stadium considering the fact that every state has at least one stadium, and we can make it mandatory for all registered state FA provide artificial playing surfaces FIFA standard, that is small thing for all the state to achieve and artifical turf could last more than 15 years, so it is a plus.

lets talk about this thread

cant say, ,

bt if they do,it will b better for both their subscribers.

Well i think is an area both companies should look into. A merge, considering the recession currently happening everywhere. Even GTV in Ghana has gone under because of the global crisis. it will be a great thing to see hitv and daarsat coming together to push dstv out of the market finally. what they should work out should include areas of affordability for all their subscribers and moving from SD to HD. I have watched movies in HD and i must say i am indeed impressed with what i see. If they combine, that will bring about over 75+ channels and what more can a man ask for. Quality channels. EPL, laliga and German league and quality programming from local and foreign. DAARHITV truly naija

Yes, it is absolutely a good and workable idea. Really going to be an interesting stuff coming out.

The only "logistics" that could actually be difficult to surmount wil be EGO.

If the people involve can resolve the issue of ego, then most of the problem that could come up would have been effectively resolved.

Imagining such will send shivers down the spine of DSTV anyday!!

I wish those behind the two station should start thinking about this becos because by 2012, the richer the content, the better the network. I know DSTV is not ball-watching, they must be doing something to upstage this nigeria companies; so my view will be for them (DAARHITV) to work out something right now reduce the cost by 50%; it is not too much to charge $2,500 or even less because if they allow more people join the network after the possible merger, they will generate more income, and some people will even pay for a year easily without stress

@luckiest

$2,500.00? for what? or you mean to say =N=2,500.00. Pls clarify.

a merger is somtin i dnt see happnin , u knw hw d average naija person thinks na.we'd rather have a million bungalows than a single skyscraper so we can all b 'landlords'.seriously sha,if they can work on comin 2geda to present a united front e for good for peeps like us as dem never design dual dish decoder.conten and subscriber wise,they'd have d best of both worlds and will not have to compete wit each other to d joy of dstv.that aside sha,mergers can b one tough koko to achieve o,

I share your view with respect to improving the Nigerian League and to promote other Nigeria sports like Basketball, Table Tennis and Boxing.

A merger will create a bigger and better company that will be able to maximise the talents in Nigeria especially Music, Film & Sport.

What Supersport did to the SA PSL is great and anything near that will probably get in 1 Million new subscribers in Nigeria (if the price is right e.g N2,500) watching Nigerian Football in Good Stadiums and good TV coverage. The Nigeria 2009 U-17 World Cup is a timely boost.

the PSL (south african league) don't have the quality of talent we have but it is well package from the academy to the main stage (PSL), super sports pumps in money like they are trying to get the right for EPL (English League); they even at some point compared the level of patronage of the EPL and PSL; and I don't blame them because it is another case of using what you have to get what you want. If they promote their league locally, it is good for them, because at the world cup, the stadiums would be used for PSL and lots of more money for their league means more quality. Someone should please speak to these guys at DAAR and HITV, to please understand that their marger is something that is of great importance to this nation.

Even as popular as HITV, the subsriber based is still not above 200,000, and in a country of 200 Million, then there is a lot of money to be made by the possiblity of this merger, so who says a SAT Sation cannot have more than 50 Million Subscriber, we (Nigeria) could be the first to get to that level; and the more subscriber for them the more money; nobody should try to use calculators, even if the subscription is put at N1000 by only 5Million, they should look at the brighter side of business.

Obama raised the highiest fund in US election history but majority of the fund came as low as $1, so they should know that the competition is not against one another but the possibility of coming together. See what Nilesat is doing for the Arabs, Sky for the English, Fox and Co for the Americans; their merger could rack in millions of subscribers and trillions of naira and even turn around our image locally and abroad. A united front could mean united people, and they could start thinking of higher techonology, more stations like having up 15 sport channels, 10 movies and so much more. they should also remember that broadband internet and several other possiblities. This will make more money stay at home.

they should start thinking ahead of other in the areas of image laundry, telling our own story, creating our news channels and ensuring it is free outside this region like creating an African news channel and puting it on SKY, NILESAT, FOX-SAT etc; and giving other people the opportunity of hear our stories from us, like the Arabs using the Aljazira, the US uses FOX, CNN and NBC, UK uses SKY and BBC. We can get better than this and make this country great again.

THIS IS VERY INCREDIBLE!!!! HOW DO YOU GUYS IMAGINE THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN A TOOTHPICK AND A JAVELINE? THEY MIGHT HAVE THE SAME FORM BUT CERTAINLY NOT THE SAME SIZE OR STRENGHT. NOW, DONT GET ME WRONG, WITH DUE RESPECT, HITV MAY HAVE WHAT MOST OF YOU GUYS NEED AT THE MOMENT(EPL), BUT THAT IS JUST FOR THE MOMENT. I CAN BET MY LIFE ON THAT. YOU KNOW, MOST PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN TO DAARSAT HQ IN ABUJA WILL NOT AGREE THAT A FORM OF MERGER IS POSSIBLE! NOPE! DOKPESI WILL BE A FOOL TO DO THAT! COMMON GUYS, ITS LIKE ASKING MICROSOFT TO MERGE WITH APPLE! IMPOSSIBLE!

NOW, CAN ANYONE TELL ME HOW? THE DIFFERENCE IS CLEAR. TOO OBVIOUS, JUST THAT VISIT A FRIEND OF YOUR WHO IS A DAARSAT SUBSCRIBER.
IF AM CORRECT, HITV HAS 16 CHANNELS, ON SD, DAARSAT HAS 52 CHANNELS ON HD, HOW DO YOU THINK SUCH MERGER COULD WORK? TOYIN SUBAIR IS TOO ARROGANT, AND TOO AMBITIOUS TO DO THAT. HE IS UNFORTUNATELY BEING EDGED OUT OF THE GAME.

HOWEVER, FOR THE SAKE OF NIGERIANS, WHAT I THINK IS POSSIBLE IS SOME FORM OF PARTNERSHIP IN PROGRAMMING. THAT IS DAARSAT AND HITV CAN DECIDE TO SHARE CHANNELS WITH EACH OTHER BECAUSE SINCERELY, THE ONLY THING LACKING IN DAARSAT OFFERING IS EPL. LET DAARSAT GET THE EPL AND YOU WILL SEE THAT HITV AND EVEN DSTV WILL ANNOUNCE THEIR EXIT IN THE NIGERIAN MARKET IN SUCCESSION. THIS AM SURE HIGH CHIEF DOKPESI IS WORKING ON AT THE MOMENT.
AS FOR HITV, THE ONLY OPTION IS TO ACCEPT WHATEVER DAAR OFFERS, THAT IS IF THEY EVER DREAMED OF LEAVING THAT IKORODU VILLAGE O COS I CANT SEE THEM SWITCHING TO HIGH DEFINITION IN THE NEXT COUPLE OF YEARS. THE COST AND THE TIME.

NOW, FOR DSTV, WELL, DSTV NIGERIA, THEY NEED TO GIVE NIGERIANS WHAT WE REALLY NEED. I DONT NEED CHANNELS I MAY NEVER WATCH ONCE A MONTH! OF WHAT USE ARE THE AGGREGATED CHANNELS THAT HAVE NO RELEVANCE TO MY LIFESTYLE? THIS NIGERIANS NEED TO UNDERSTAND. WHAT DO I NEED CNN (WORLD NO 4) ON DSTV FOR, WHEN I HAVE FOX NEWS (WORLD NO 1), BBC (NO 2) AND AL JAZEERA (NO 3) ON DAARSAT? AND SO ON LIKE THAT?
MY GRANDMA CAN NOW WHAT A PAY-TV (WELCOME TO FAAJI, GAMZAKI, IGBO CHANNEL, QUEST),

TRULY, I DON'T SEE THE MERGER WORKING, BUT ONLY SEE THE COMPETITION BECOMING MORE INTENSED AND SOPHISTICATED; THAT IS THE EDGE DAAR HAS IS THAT NO OTHER TV OFFERS HIGH DEFINITION BROADCASTING, TAKE IT OR TAKE IT. THAT'S THE EDGE FOR NOW, AND IT WILL REMAIN SO UNTIL GOD KNOWS HOW LONG.

I SUGGEST YOU GUYS VISIT DAARSAT HQS ON KPADUMA HILLS IN ASOKORO ABUJA FOR MORE , SEEING IS BELIEVING.

BROADCASTING HAS CHANGED, NOT ONLY IN AFRICA BUT ALL OVER THE WORLD. SO WHY SHOULD I BE ADDICTED TO DSTV WHEN I CAN GET BETTER ON AN INDIGENOUS PAY-TV? HOWEVER, I AM TOLD THAT DAARSAT IS NOW GOING ON SALE FOR 18K. SO WHAT'S THE FUSE ABOUT HITV (SORRY, I MEANT WEEKEND-ONLY-TV)?

GUYS, I REST MY CASE!!!!!

Hi shamass77,
please will like to find out the total of getting daarsat and the full list and names of channels that are currently showing on daarsat.

also you guys need to work on your website.

[b]@shamass77,
my guy from daar group. how u dey hope all is well with u in abuja.
i couldn't help but laugh when i saw ur opening remark in ur last post on this thread. so, by ur own summation, who is the toothpick and who is the javelin?
my guy, do not believe that the HD equipment you have gives you any edge over others in this DTH business. because from all what you have said, all i can pick out is the fact that you have a very big selfish monopolistic blood running in your veins.
it doesn't matter if you pay $200 million dollars or more to get the EPL rights, or have HD formats, and all the latest gadgets in the industry. the bottom line is, if you do not have the subscriber base to back up all your investments, you and your daarsat will sink faster than the titanic.
Let what happened to GTV in Ghana be a good lesson to you. it was not that they didn't have the equipment or the content that made them go under; what killed them was the fact that they didn't have the subscriber base to recoup their investment from.
what we Nigerians desire is a home grown platform where we can enjoy the best of digital satellite television that offers very good local and foreign content at very cheap affordable rate. that means very affordable subscriber equipment(decoder + dish), and VERY POCKET FRIENDLY SUBSCRIPTION RATES.
Remember when GSM mobile phones were first introduced in Nigeria, the cost of owning one was very expensive and the subscriber base was very low and the operators were not finding it easy running a profitable biz. then one day, a new operator entered the scene and immediately crashed the cost of owning a GSM line and greatly reduced the tarrifs for making calls. what happened, every operator joined the bandwagon of crashing the cost of owning a GSM line and reduced calling rates. today, what do we have?? both old and new GSM operators have recorded a 500% increase in their subscriber base which has translated to increased revenue to make their businesses very profitable.
shamass, do not think for one second that the manufacturers of HD equipment have stopped making new equipment since daar group bought theirs. the so called state of the art equipments that your organisation posses today that is making you not to see reason with most Nigerians is going to become absolutely OBSELETE JUNK tomorrow, because technology is dynamic and it keeps evolving every day. new inventions are been made on a daily basis.
Besides, someone might just come into the scene tomorrow with the financial muscle to aquire the latest HD dvb broadcasting equipment, aquire every lucrative content rights and partner/merge with existing local pay tv providers and completely make their offerings so cheap it would be like aquiring a GSM phone line now. then, we shall see what will become of selfish monopolistic egg heads in the DTH industry in Nigeria.
our elders say, a word is enough for the wise. the Holy Bible says "my people perish for lack of knowledge and vision".
Nigerians are watching!!!!!!! wish u all the best
[/b]

when I came up with this thread, I knew some people will completely see it as an impossiblity; LINKSMAN, you have completely beared my mind on this whole issue; for Shamass77 to think that HITV cannot decide to upgrade to High Definition (HD), add more magor channel, reduce their subscription cost; then you will tell me where DAARSAT will stand.

HI Nolly for local movies is actually good, but it needs little improvement, in the contents, quality of picture, audio; then it can compete with any station showing movies on any network.

Hi Sports (1&2); Hi Soccer; this is already an A Class channel that can stand it own any where; the presenters have improved over time and they can still do more, with little money the studio can be touched with stand any one in the world; to even add that no other station other than HiTV will show the champions league next season, YES this is a fact anyone can contact the broadcast right owners to verify this fact. Watchout for more improved Sports on HITV.

Amuludun is now popular among Yoruba viewers, so igbo and hausa channels are also coming before the end of the year; HINTs has it that a channel specially dedicated to other local languages is on the way.

Nigezie and trace are doing justice to music, and thinking of the name Nigezie (prondly Naija) visit UK and you will see how Nigerians and other Africans appreciates the contents from Nigezie, more could still be done as they have created room for improvement.

so my brother shammass77 all due respect to the content provided by DAARSAT and the technology (HD); even if they build an HD manufacturing center in their Abuja Hills; you still need subscribers to pay subscription for them to earn any income; and unlike the terrestial transmission of they previously offer where because of the free transmission and the wide reach advertisers will only advertise when your subscriber base is large; (find out how long it took before they (advertisers) started talking to HITV) so it is a different ball game.

The only difference here is the HD to be sincere because the core of the job needed to be done by HITV has been done; but more still needs to be done and they know with DAARSAT and DSTV yes they still need to do more work. The station on DAARSAT are not exclusive to them so it is only a matter of discussion between HITV management and the owners, the rest is history.

So all I am trying to do here is to advise both company to save cost; partnership or merge will ensure that hitv doesn't need to buy more machine to upgrade to HD or studio or adding more channels etc. this will save the nation and the station forex. It could stimulate the new Nigerian image the country is trying to promote; when we tell our own story by ourselves and sell to the world, the arabs are doing it with Al Jazeera, we can have a fomidable news channels that can tell the Africa story by africans to the world the more the merrier.

DAARSAT will not need to cough out more money to try to upstage anyone for premiership rights, instead such fund could be given to our local league to improve the quality of games and other areas.

We can also have very good local channels for children, have our local cartoon, and who knows we could one day see our own type of Lion King, or Kung Fu PAnda type of cartoon, we should join hand to compete with the world and not against ourselves, we know DSTV is not ours, yet they have made more money here that the rest of Africa; but their local production benefited we never did; this is the time for us to improve our own. If we can boost of more than 30 locally generated channels it would really help the local broadcast workers. One station alone means more, let alone 30; it is not too much; who says with little support from here and there we can have various channels for Drama, Action, Soup etc.

This should not even be an option.

Dont you guys like competition? When we had only Telcos like Intercellular in Nigeria, mobile phones were only for the rich and going for around 190k(If you can even smell it).

When the other Telcos entered and brought some competition, the prices fell, then came the GSM and the rest they say, is history.

What would you want to be creating in the merger of these two? A monopoly, which is not what we need.

Contrary to what most of you guys think, Daarsat is the one in danger here of going down.

Yes they have invested billions in equipment , so what?

Who is watching the equipment?

You can even confirm this by what the inside man, Shamass said and i quote "I SUGGEST YOU GUYS VISIT DAARSAT HQS ON KPADUMA HILLS IN ASOKORO ABUJA FOR MORE ,  SEEING IS BELIEVING" . Do I have to go to Abuja tp your headquarters to see your offerings?

Where and who are your dealers in Lagos? When asked, you guys will say people should travel to alagbado, your office to view your offerings and maybe subscribe.

You guys aint serious. What about the website, does that look like a business that has kicked off in the Sattelite tv business?

How much is your package? One needs at least 50k to get connected(if its not so, pls come in and break it down for us to know).

How many Nigerians , in this times, will be willing to spend that amount to get connected? Small wonder we have to come to Abuja to be able to see cause lagosians just aint interested.

By the way, am not a Hitv staff. I am just someone who says it as it is. The hitv people also get the stick whenever they deserve the stick.

Cheers

Competition; sincerely speaking I believe in it but in this age of broadcasting, I think we should be taking the competition a lot more higher, we gave Africa its first television, yet we are not considered a big player in Africa or West Africa. DSTV have dorminated Southern Africa, we can have a union of the two current top broadcasting organisation having merged to form a strong Nigerian company to start thinking of West Africa. In West Africa we have 3 major international languages English, French and Spanish, so if we have a company that can carry all these west african countries along, then we can start thinking of the world.

The merger could bring a lot in collaboration by exparts in various field; like movies, because using Nollywood as a steping platform we can have a Ghanian film doing serious Ghana stories connecting various West African under nollywood, people move from Nigeria to Senegal to Cote Iviore to Togo etc and as they do so stories are generated, and as a result telling a story about a man or family or friend or people that involves other countries it will be easy to share same story with other people whose culture are a little similar in nature; the producers can also think of digital sub-title in french and Spanish and several other languages in the region.

Sports, we could rebrand the WAFU CUP and make it much more serious and important and even more attractive, and make sure it is played in good stadia, promote it properly and ensure that at all times it is filled to capacity. In my opinion I see West Africa as just one country if not for the white men who separated us, well that is a discussion for another thread. We could use the merger to promote other sports as nobody is ready to do it for us.

We should be grab the region from DSTV, Canal France and LC2, we can compete with them that is the competition, we can use both platform together to create and give opportunity to our young talents in Broadcast, Sports, Movies, Entertainment and so on.

One thing I should let us know that the more the number of subscription the better, so if both companies can come together with very attractive local content programmes that also meets the regional and international standards; they should as a matter of great importance reduce the cost of obtain the hardware (decoder, smart card, and dish); it my opinion subscription should be reduced too, because it is only when you ensure that a lot more people have access to your network that you make more money.

N1,000 is a cost I find more affordable for anyone who wants to watch TV, if the Network has say 50Million subscriber, then N1,000 per month as subscription will mean N50,000,000,000 (50 Billion Naira) cool, any network that makes that much will be able to get new equipment as the are introduced; their will be enough fund to create a serious digital film institute that will complement the local content production Wooow! this could actually be done and we can even start selling our programmes to other networks around the world; check any international broadcast network you will find America and India; we can do better.

It is not enough to say we are competiting against ourselves when the real war is out there, its like saying Enyimba is the African Champion when they can even compete against the likes of Burnley FC of England.

A network that generate as much as 50Bs a month should be able to pay the NFL (Nigeria Football League) saying 20Billion for the league, or share among the West Cost League bodies the sum of 50Billion in order to promote the quality of games so that the network can generate serious A Class local content that is also suitable for exports. Who says the Nigeria, Ghana, Cote d'ivore, Senegal, Togo, Benin, E-Guinea, Mali etc cannot produce quality leagues; YES WE CAN, if we can tell ourselves the truth and focus more in creating the proper platform for the establishment of real club sides and academies, management, marketing and promotiing, then we should be talking of worldclass, E-Guinea hosted the U20 nations cup and people saw the quality of facilities, they can do more, we saw Ghana at the last Nations cup hosting, We know watch Nigeria can do if we truly put our acts together. Do this search yourself, find out what DSTV is giving PSL and compare it with what NFL gets, check watch Coca Cola paid to the winners of their own South Africa FA Cup and compare it with our own FA Cup winner, if we parkage our product properly, we would get better offer from any brand in the world.

We could have an international news on the network that will showcase West Africa and the rest of Africa to the world covering all spectrum of our world and spice it up with a bit of europe, asia and american news then we can allow other continent to air the channel for free for 5 years to make it more popular and accessible to the world.

Let us tell these people that they can come together and take this war to the world

@Luckiest,
i am feeling u seriously my brother. good talk.
i am sure the people concerned are listening.
let me just let the shamass'es of this world know that their is something cooking red hot on the FTA(free-to-air) KU band platform. some world class players are about launching something sweet specially for the sub-saharan African region. they just discovered that they have a very good market over here, and already test transmission are already being carried out. the signals will be carried on the SIRIUS bird.
i really pity some people that want me to come and waste N50,000 naira on their ugly offerings when i can install a 3m dish and watch over 2,000 FTA channels free of charge that show all premiership, la liga, champions league, latest movies, mini series, documentaries, and all the best news channels for under N30,000 naira without any subscription charges.

shamass77: maybe you just don't understand what am saying, in todays business the koko is creative and your ability to challenge yourself before you present your case to the world, DAARSAT could as well be free, but if they don't have what I want to see it doesn't make sense for me to have it. Even HITV is still considered high at 4K monthly, and I have the opportunity of watching all the Champions leagues, Premiership, La Liga, Seria A, Carling Cup and the rest of them and you expect me to pay N5,500 monthly for nothing.

The interest of everyone varies when it comes to TV, but operators always consider the most watch as a key to draging a lot of viewers to their network that is what HITV has done, now that they are a bit comfortable they can start thinking of improving other areas such as picture quality, audio, add adding more channels. and in my opinion they should reduce the monthly cost to about N1,500 or even N1,000 so that a lot of people can afford it, because the more the merrier.

Am not a lottery man so if I want to take part in any competition I must first weigh the option, and who told you 15 people will be going to the world cup, please leave that media talk, even as open as "WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE" can be I still have my suspicion on the credibilty how much more one that will only require some selected number in a box and one selected questionable person will come and pick the winner or the 15 people, is it yam to send people to the world cup, let us be realistic because that is the game.

A merger is the answer from the way I look atthings right now believe it or not, one day you will see things my way, that is our problem in Nigeria, we only think "I" can do it alone, we can work together. Where is Concord Newspaper, all due respect to MKO but the truth most be told, If anything happens to Abramovich of Chelsea today I wonder what will become of the club. Even Trend TV can still join, FSTV what happened to them I guess we forgot so soon about them. do you remember Cabletel? it is not all about equipment it, it everything; you cannot say because you killed a cow then the soup is ready, you still need other item without them the cow will be useless.

Let those who are close to these people talk sense into them, because the competition is not here, who says we can't have a truly nigerian company pusing seriously the interest of west africa and africa to the world. We can do better, you need oil to eat yam the same way you need yam to eat oil. Even if you run faster than me, you have to consider that I am aready leading, so DAARSAT should consider the fact that HITV is already ahead in the area of subscriber base and serious exclusive rights (first refusal); HITV should also consider that DAARSAT has the latest equipment (which HITV can also aquire if they choose to) but why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free, the merger could mean less forex is spent in this time of recession.

The competition should be between the channels, the local TV channels could compete against themselves on the network. Sound TV and Nigezie could be competing against themselves, and who says a network cannot have up to 10 sports channels, the channels could be on the network yet still enjoy some level of independence to create healthy competition, Amuludum and Faaji. Sky is all over Europe, that should give us an idea of what I hope to see; the merger could use West Africa as their base, and even the next premiership bid could be presented is such a way that West Africa should be used instead of just Nigeria. I can go on an on but lets reserve some for another day.